Bus stops on cycle lanes pose threat to life and limb in Kingston upon Thames

THIS week’s blog features engineer John Meudell who explains  why he is highly critical of the attitudes of the planning and highways engineers building cycle lanes in England. 

His accompanying photographs of recently constructed cycle lanes in Kingston upon Thames illustrate the dangerous short comings we have become familiar with over the years. 

Do Kingston's cycle lanes even comply with government guidelines which call for a minimum of 3 metres width for a two-way cycle lane?  These two-way lanes look very narrow in the photographs, with  barely enough room for approaching riders to pass in safety. 
And that's before we add bus stops into the equation!

John Meudell,  loaded and ready for another big tour.

Unlike in The Netherlands where whole junctions get ripped apart and rebuilt from scratch in order to accommodate all modes, cycling infrastructure in the few places it does exist in the UK  has been  tacked on to existing roads and pavements and safety and convenience  compromised. The smart signage and distinctive black surface with the symbol of a cycle  provides a false sense of security.

In Kingston there is real possibility of collisions between cyclists and bus passengers where bus stops are positioned on the cycle lanes.  

Kingston even admits to the dodgy construct on their website, where the cycle lane passes under the noses of alighting passengers. Kingston simply advise cyclists, bus passengers and bus drivers to be aware at these locations! 

Would they expect passengers to step off a bus onto a  main road?  At least they did get the cycle lane design right at one bus stop!

Meudell ponders how it is that dangerous facilities such as these get signed off as safe to use? Why are they built that way in the first place?

Yet this has been the trend in the UK for decades.

It begs the question, if the government were ever to fulfil our wishes to rebuild the highways to make them “safer” for cyclists are planners and highway engineers up to the task?

Personally, as a professional engineer, writes John MeudelI, I find the concept of pop-up cycle lanes highly concerning.  Given the safety critical nature of highways and the poor quality of current cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, even when developed (if not consulted) over a number of years the idea that, by someone sticking down a bunch of coloured traffic cones almost at random, the activity suddenly becomes safer and more convenient is bizarre!

I was horrified when I first heard the excuse “there haven’t been enough cyclists/pedestrians killed” when asked about road improvements for cyclists.  That was in the early 2000’s, albeit the guy who said it, a highways engineer, was being ironic at the time.  But, since then, the attitude has only got worse and the myopia systemized.

Coming from my background; i.e. munitions, hot and heavy steel; domestic gas, aviation, power and oil and gas engineering; industries where safety is of critical importance (and not only human life but financial safety as well) I find the general attitude of the highways industry, and its administrators, totally abhorrent. 

If anything the recent screw up over “Smart (duh!) Motorways” has reinforced that view, HE blindly pushing a capacity agenda with little grounded thought for the safety implications or their decisions.

(The introduction of smart motorways has led to an increase in serious accidents on some stretches, official research has revealed. An analysis of reports published by Highways England, the body that maintains motorways and major A-roads in England, showed that severe accident rates worsened after the hard shoulder was removed.)

Over the years I have had many conversations with the officials charged with transport planning and highways engineering.  Their attitude, combined with the complete lack of accountability of their profession, has convinced me that they will never “heal themselves” and it will require an outside intervention and change agent to achieve this.  Hence my long held view those things will only change with the creation of an independent Inspectorate of Roads, or similar organization, with full powers of sanction, to hold the highways establishment to account.

What is also concerning is the lack of any “sound of opposition” from pedestrian and cycling organizations on the subject of infrastructure safety. 

Recent Kingston schemes for cyclists have  been a shambles. Here are four different bus stop treatments within a kilometre of one another. Near the junction of Surbiton Road and Penrhyn Road. 

 We have this gem  with a little blue circular
sign on a post indicating

                      shared use beyond, into the bus stop zone! 

The telephone box! To get round it, pedestrians simply step  into the cycle path .

At least Kingston got this right, a sensibly configured arrangement.  

This cycle lane is an accident waiting to happen, every time a bus stops and disgorges passengers onto the cycle lane. Last year I was on a bus which pulled up here. The driver opened the doors and a young woman stepped out - straight into the path of two kids doing about 15kph. Fortunately, they reacted instantly and missed her completely. But the kids' mother on her bike, had to swerve and brake hard and nearly fell.
All but one of these bus stops rely exclusively on the reactions of pedestrians, cyclists and bus drivers to  keep each other safe from conflicts created by the  highways engineers and the safety inspectors responsible.
........................................

John Meudel C.Eng MIMechE,  is a professional engineer and former deputy chairman of the CTC. (Cyclists’ Touring Club, now rebranded as Cycling UK).

Trained  initially  as  an  engineer  he has  extensive  international experience,  in  both  private  and  public sectors, holding senior positions within the DTI, in London, and Royal Dutch Shell in Malaysia, UK, the Netherlands, Brunei and Sarawak. His early career included spells with Rolls Royce, British Steel and Royal Ordnance plus, over the years, extensive work with voluntary organisations.

Since leaving industry and moving into research his focus has increasingly turned to transport planning, integration and development, along with aspects of community involvement, most specifically in relation to non-motorised user issues.

 

Cycling UK plead with transport secretary Schapps

The time is fast running out to build on the increase in cycling since lockdown, say Cycling UK, who have written to transport secretary Grant Schapps urging him to fulfill the government's promise to fund the national cycling and walking plan.

This from Cycling UK…….

With only a week until parliament rises for its summer recess on July 22, Roger Geffen, Cycling UK’s policy director, said he was concerned that many of the proposals announced by the government in May, including publication of a national walking and cycling plan, have still not been delivered. Cycling UK believes that if action is not taken soon, a golden opportunity to build on the increase in cycling since lockdown began could be lost.

Mr Geffen welcomed the action taken so far, including £250m in emergency active travel funding (EATF), the first £45m of which has recently been allocated to allow local authorities to rapidly reallocate road space for cycling and walking.

However, in his letter, he points out that a promise to deliver a national cycling plan in early June has not been kept, and no further announcements made on when it might be coming.

This anguished call for action to fund cycling  has become a regular pantomime in which Cycling UK plead for government to fulfil its promises, in this latest case,  to  fund a multi-£billion national cycling plan.

Not that I view Cycling UK as pantomime characters.

Cycling UK are a serious outfit who, over many years, have presented many sound reports on the benefits to be had from making the roads safer for cycling.

Each time the government promises action and fails to deliver.

It’s the government ministers refusing to take the issue seriously who have made this into a pantomime. But there’s nothing funny about. You might leave with tears streaming down your face, not of joy, but from sheer despair at the utter stupidity of the brain dead. 

We must hope that Grant Schapps, Transport Secretary, will break tradition this week and respond positively to the plea from Cycling UK, the national cyclists’ organisation.

And not  turn a deaf ear, like previous ministers.

Soon, we Cycling UK members can expect letters asking us to write to our local MPs to bring pressure to bear.

It’s the same story every time

And nothing has ever happened.

Government agrees to the excellent reports setting out why the roads need to be made safer and how cycling can benefit the health of nation and they promise the earth.

Then do nothing. Why? Because for some reason known only to themselves, they appear not to want to encourage too much cycling!

Happens every time.

Here are a few previous examples of government inaction.

Get Britain Cycling Report, 2013. 

This excellently presented report was presented by their own, the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group. It was endorsed by the Prime Minister, David Cameron who then refused to give it cabinet backing but instead passed the buck to local authorities who neither have the funding nor, in many cases, the political will.

Between 2013 and now, the Government has tinkered with pushing forward a national policy for cycling and walking, the intervening years punctuated by urgent reminders by campaigners to get on with it.

There was talk of a cycling and walking strategy in 2016, with all sorts of piss poor figures being bandied about: £64m to encourage more cycling (2017); a pitiful £6.5m to boost cycle ambitious cities (2018).

When you consider that Manchester needs £1.2 billion to build their 1800 mile network you will  understand that a national cycling strategy won’t be going far on the few £million the government talks about.

One of the best/worst examples of government duplicity came way back in 1996, when the historic national cycling strategy was launched by the Conservative Party to great fanfare but with no funding.

It was useless anyway, because a cycling strategy on its own can’t possibly work without strategies for other transport modes as well. And Britain has never had a transport policy, never mind an integrated transport policy.

The only man to dream up an integrated national transport strategy was Labour’s John Prescott in the 1990s but because he wanted to cut back on car use he lost his brief and his white paper was torn up.

The Tories, however, are totally responsible for the current impasse.

Can Schapps snap them out of it?

POPPING BACK TO TRAFFORD AND REIGATE

BBC’s World at One last Thursday featured Manchester’s cycling Czar Chris Boardman and  MP for Reigate Cristopher Blunt to explain why pop up cycle lanes in their respective areas had been cancelled only days after installation. (see previous blog).

Boardman said the Trafford facility taken out was only a short section of a 3.5mile cycle lane – the longest in the country, he claimed – and it was done because it was found to be unsuitable for that location. No problem, he said.

As for Reigate,  Mr Blunt also claimed that the placing of the cycle lane on the High Street had also proved to be unsuitable. He was asked if he supported the installation cycle lanes in general and he replied “yes” – through clenched teeth, it sounded like.

 A local cyclist has told me that the Reigate High Street is dominated by through traffic – it is on the A25 - and a cycle lane on the High Street was therefore unlikely to reduce the impact of local traffic which wasn’t so high on that stretch of road. Alternative routes for cyclists to access the High Street exist.

Meanwhile, a quarter of the 16,000 mile national cycle network has been “declassified” because these supposedly quiet roads shared with motor traffic have now  been declared unsafe for cyclists by Sustrans, the sustainable transport charity. Many of the shared routes were not fit for purpose from the outset.

Black day for cycling as six councils reject pop-up cycle lanes

Here we go.

"Councils put brakes on cycling schemes in England after backlash"...says The Guardian today (July16).
The report tells how six councils have cancelled cycle routes funded by the government, as part of their £250 million emergency active travel fund.

This you will recall was as much to do with encouraging people to cycle to avoid using crowded public transport and the risk of catching the Coronavirus, as  to help prevent traffic pollution levels from rising again, after they had fallen dramatically during lockdown.

The six councils who have cancelled cycle routes are: Ealing, Wandsworth, South Gloucestershire, Trafford, Portsmouth and Surrey.

Trafford?

That’s Manchester, which has huge plans for cycling, the best in the country, as my recent blogs have reported. What’s the problem in Trafford?

I dare say we will find out.

Apparently, a number of Conservatives have campaigned against these pop up cycle lane plans, including Crispin Blunt, MP for Reigate, who lobbied for Surrey county council to remove a cycle lane on Reigate High Street, three days into the planned three-week trial.

He claimed the road was already a “bottle-neck”. 

Now let’s not jump to conclusions and immediately blame the anti-cycling motoring brigades who have friends in high places. Well, not yet, not for a few more paragraphs!

Maybe the placing of the cycle lanes had not been thought through, as is claimed.  

Cycling lanes on our road! Taking road space from our motors!

Correction, your motors. I don’t have one.
The best thing really is simply to flood the roads with cyclists - critical mass style - going about their rightful business as they have every right to do. 
No one objects to more and more cars! So they cannot logically object to more and more cycles, or horseriders for that matter, using the highway. Slow everything down, deter the buggars from driving about and poisoning the air.
They are not motoring roads.

But OK, maybe the pop ups weren’t thought through, perhaps there were other roads where pop up  cycle lanes would have been more suitable, like cul de sacs. 

Why this sudden reaction instead of at least giving them a chance to see how they worked over a trial period?

Did  councils simply put blindfolds on and walk up to a  map and stick pins it, and then say that’s where they’ll go?

Of the cycle plans for Ealing, the local MP said the plans are well intentioned but the scheme was badly thought through.

But if it turns out that the car mad society and the taxi drivers’ organisation -  for whom we all know the roads were made for in the first place  – are behind this, well, then, that wouldn't surprise me.

For in the same story, The Guardian reports 
that eight out of 10 Conservative politicians in London objected to proposed new cycling infrastructure comprising 83 cycle routes between 2013 and 2019.

They included councillors, MPs and members of the House of Lords. Not just the high and mighty but residents associations were seen as likely to oppose cycling schemes, too.
Schemes aiming to make us a healthier nation and reduce pollution and congestion.

In which case, let me just say, well done, what a fabulous bunch you all are.  Really wonderful.  Keep on being absolutely splendid. May you all choke on your own exhausts.

Cyclops - unique breakthrough in junction safety

CYCLOPS, a unique road junction design which segregates cyclists and pedestrians from traffic was launched in Hulme, South Manchester last Thursday.

It will allow cyclists to approach from four ‘arms’ which converge onto an orbital cycle track completely encircling the junction.

Depending upon signal timings, it will be possible for cyclists to make a right turn at the junction in one manoeuvre. They can also filter left without signal control.

It is the first ever junction in the UK designed with the safety of vulnerable road users in mind, with separate paths for cyclists and pedestrians. And it was designed by Transport for Greater Manchester engineers.

A key element so far as motor traffic is concerned is that drivers experience less delay at Cyclops than at many other conventional junctions. 

Cyclops?  -It stands for “Cycle Optimised Protected Signals”   not the one-eyed monster of Greek and later Roman legend –the Cyclopes!

I must admit to feeling a little excited by this breakthrough in road infrastructure.

The junction before...

The junction now

Could this kick start the long overdue cycling transport revolution in Britain? I like to think so. There will be as many of 30 Cyclops junctions across Greater Manchester in the quest to become the first UK city with a cycling and pedestrian network across all 10 boroughs.  
This is the 1,800-mile Bee Network, the brainchild of Manchester Cycling Czar, the Olympic champion Chris Boardman, and Mayor Andy Burnham.

Designers of the Cyclops junction, TfGM Engineers Richard Butler and Jonathan Salter, were tasked with overcoming the flaws in existing UK junction designs, to consider how to make the junction work for all modes.
 “The main difference between this junction and traditional UK junction designs is that cyclists are offered an alternative safer route around the junction,” Butler and Salter explained.

Transport for Greater Manchester engineers Richard Butler, Jonathan Salter and Project Manager Dave Stevens.

With the Cyclops design …“They are no longer required to position themselves on the nearside of the lane, allowing vehicles to pass on their offside which is often the cause of so-called ‘left hook’ incidents, where cyclists going ahead are struck by a vehicle turning left from the same lane.”

The design has been applauded by experts nationally and internationally, with the approach being adopted in Cambridge, Lancashire and even Ottawa in Canada.

The next CYCLOPS will be at Newport Street by Bolton Station.  Chris Boardman, cycling and walking commissioner for Greater Manchester said, “Crossing busy junctions on foot or by bike can be a complicated and scary experience and is often a huge barrier for people travelling by foot or bike, and having to navigate a number of these can make them opt for the car.

“Particularly right now, as we’ve seen cycling trips up by 34% and cycling and walking trips now counting for 33% of all journeys in Greater Manchester, this junction design will make journeys easier and smoother for those doing their bit by cycling or walking, without impacting negatively on any other modes. This design is simply genius and I’m not surprised to see other places already adopting the approach.”

*Manchester last week received £21m government funding to put in the temporary measures to make cycling and walking safer, as called for  by government to get people moving again as the Coronavirus lockdown is eased.

Comment………..

The brilliance of Cyclops is that it puts vulnerable road users on an equal footing with motor transport, without causing additional delay to precious drivers!

Don’t delay drivers! That has been the golden rule of transport planning since the 60s when private car ownership began to soar.  To encourage this government ministers decided that drivers must be able to drive where they want, when they want to, and without delay.

So it was that roads were laid out with one thought only, to process motor traffic quickly. There was rarely a thought for pedestrians and cyclists. Which is why, for instance, on those few cycle tracks built alongside main roads, there is no right of way across side roads or provision at junctions. And why more recently, sharp turnings into side roads have been pared back so vehicles do not have to slow down too much, putting pedestrians at greater risk.

Roundabouts were designed to process traffic speedily, creating a potential nightmare for cyclists. There must only be minimum delay to motor traffic,  it was decided.  which is why to this day pedestrians using traffic light controlled crossings on high streets see the green man turn red often before they are three quarters the way across.  

This is the way it has always been and most likely why getting the needs of cyclists included in transport plans has proved so difficult. Which is why Cyclops could be a winner, an equalizer, you could say.

MANCHESTER HOLDS THE KEY

Manchester key to rolling out Britain’s cycling revolution

Manchester probably holds the key to whether the cycling transport revolution promised by the government finally happens, after decades of false promises.

Why? Because Manchester has a huge cycling plan ready to go – the Bee Network costed at £1.2bn - devised by former Olympic champion Chris Boardman and the Mayor, Andy Burnham MP (featured in a previous blog).

Surely, now it’s time has come.

Manchester placed their £1.2bn bid with the Department for Transport last year, months before the pandemic shut down the world with the spread of the coronavirus. They are still waiting to hear back from the DfT.

 

Manchester has big plans for cycling

If they get the go ahead, it will mean the government is serious about making the roads safer for cycling beyond their call to install Pop-up cycle lanes as a means of quickly encouraging bike use.

For then other cities will follow suit.

If Manchester doesn’t get the go-ahead, then the cycling dream will have become another of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s fairy stories.

Remember the 40 new hospitals he promised during his election campaign? Turns out funding provided was only enough money for six, including some in need of repair.

So after the initial surge  to install “pop-up” cycle lanes now happily appearing  in towns and cities, firm decisions need  to be taken and big money spent to make more permanent changes to the highway.

Then those who wish to cycle but do not because of the hostile road environment can do so, including the huge number of Manchester residents who do not drive.

Fewer cars mean less pollution, which is the key factor behind the calls now to encourage cycling and walking.

The only positive to come out of this pandemic has been the huge drop in pollution levels as traffic and production halted worldwide.

Pollution, which globally kills 9m a year, was simply blown away during this period.

The horrible irony is that over the years pollution has contributed to the respiratory illnesses which resulted in so many succumbing to the virus.

With the world breathing fresh air again, countries said that never again must pollution be allowed rise to such unhealthy levels.  Hence the global call to get on  your bike and walk for those many short journeys, instead of driving and, crucially for many, to allow people to avoid using crowded public transport  with its risk of infection.

It is worth noting the subtle but telling difference in the UK’s call, which emphasised to cycle and walk to work instead of using public transport. No mention of cycling instead of driving, as I recall. 

Afterall no British government dare risk the wrath of the Middle England, looking forward as they are to the £27b road building programme which is also on the cards and which will only add to the pollution levels the cycling strategy is meant to address.

Scientists warned this year that long term exposure to air pollution (with traffic the major contributor) is killing one in 19 people in the UK each year |(Air Quality News.com). This is despite the UK currently meeting legal limits!

Premature deaths from pollution in the UK – between 28,000 and 36,000 a year - is 25 times higher than deaths from road traffic collisions!

.

There is huge political and public support in Manchester to roll out the 1,800 miles of the Bee Network.

Manchester, streets ahead in cycling planning

Ellie Stott, the Communications and Engagement Officer for Transport for Greater Manchester says work has been going for a number of years, mainly focusing around the delivery of the 1,800 mile Bee Network.

Now, in response to the call to install Pop Up cycling lanes to help people start to move safely after the pandemic lockdown, Manchester is planning to install  measures such as footway extensions, one-way streets, removing through traffic on certain roads, adding extra cycle lanes and removing street ‘clutter’ like pedestrian guard rail at pinch points.

This is their SafeStreetsSaveLives campaign which has received £5m of emergency funding from the Mayors Cycling and Walking Challenge Fund. 

One such initiative is the new cycle lane in Trafford along the A56.

Manchester has now also submitted a bid of £21.5m to the DfT for further measures in all 10 districts, including in the towns of Wigan, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, plus Salford, Stockport, Tameside, and Trafford.

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, said: “Greater Manchester has been leading the way with our plans to build the largest walking and cycling network in the UK. A number of cities around the world have begun implementing measures to enable safe essential travel and exercise during lockdown. As part of our efforts to Build Back Better in Greater Manchester, we’re taking the same, bold approach - Safe Streets really do Save Lives.

“Peoples’ travel behaviour across our city region has transformed during lockdown. As more people turn to walking and cycling, we want that to continue as we move into life beyond lockdown. That’s why we’ve proposed measures, backed by up to £5m of funding, to create space which allows people to continue making safe, sustainable journeys.

“Whatever peoples’ motivation - these choices are contributing to cleaning up our city’s air and causing less congestion on our roads, and that’s something we must sustain for the immediate future.”

Chris Boardman, Cycling and Walking Commissioner for Greater Manchester, said: “Like any successful response to a crisis, people must be the priority. And fortunately, the data is unambiguous; during lockdown more and more residents across Greater Manchester are turning to walking and cycling for essential journeys and exercise. So, in order give people the space they need to keep safe, the only real question was ‘how soon can we act?’

“If we don’t take steps to enable people to keep traveling actively, we risk a huge spike in car use as measures are eased. Not only is it the right thing to do to protect people now, but it’s vital to meet our clean air goals and protect our NHS long term.”

*With the dramatic fall in traffic volumes of about 60% across Greater Manchester, walking and cycling have played an increasingly important role.

They now account for approximately 33% of all journeys, with cycling up 22% compared to pre-lockdown data. These trends have also led to congestion almost being eliminated and significant drop in pollution.

SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

Great times ahead for cycling, it seems, from all the positive announcements coming in from around the world since the previous blog.  Let's have another look at this story.
The roads are to be made safer for cycling, cycle lanes will be wider and longer, and people will switch from driving to cycling for short trips.

Is this real, or from Alice in Wonderland?

   Well, Cycling UK’s ears pricked up at Transport Secretary Grant Shapps statement:  “commits the Government to make public health part of transport policy, and active travel a core element.”

 Not sure how the UK government’s £multi-billion road building plan fits this picture!  Some 50 new road building projects are also planned over the next two years.

The scheme is facing a legal challenge from Transport Action Network, claiming such plans are in breach of the UK’s climate and air quality obligations.

So, a mixture of dreams and nightmares on the transport front.

Latest Government plan sounds too good to be true. 

At least several countries are now acknowledging the dire threat posed by pollution.

It’s taken over 200 years for them to reach their senses, despite the many warnings.
One such can be traced back to the 19^th century America.

This from Chief Seattle, who had witnessed the Red Man’s lands taken by the white man and who made this comment after observing the intruders wasteful ways.

He said:

“Like a man who has been dying for many days, a man in your city is numb to the stench.”

And that was before pollution from factories and traffic began to poison the sweet smelling air his people cherished, but which has been taken for granted by the rest of mankind pillaging and burning the earth for the riches which have given us our modern world and yes, been hugely beneficial in improving our lives.

But at a huge cost to the planet and to our health.  It is only in recent times we have sought to conserve, to replenish, and to try to restore balance.

It’s in our nature leave shit everywhere, even on another world.

How about this gem I heard lately, from a recent TV documentary on the historicMoon landing in July 1969.

Don’t forget this bag, Buzz Aldrin called out to Neil Armstrong through the hatch of the Lunar Module, as Armstrong stood poised on the ladder, about to become the first man to set foot on the Moon.

It was a small bag

Armstrong took the bag and threw it ahead of him onto the surface of the moon, where it still lies. It contained three days of accumulated trash from their flight from earth. So man’s first act upon visiting a new world was to trash it.

Say no more.

It can’t get any worse, surely? Things must be about to get better.

So, here we are, it’s May 2020.

It’s made the news, cycling is the way forward.

The Coronavirus pandemic has brought the world to its senses.  The lockdown which halted road and air traffic and factory production led to a huge drop in pollution levels.

It was as if suddenly we have woken up to the perils posed by pollution, which kills 9m globally a year, causing the respiratory illnesses which made so many vulnerable to the Coronavirus.

Now, apparently, cities  the world over have declared they want the clear air to remain, and call on  people to cycle and walk more and drive less and crucially, avoid using crowded public transport and the risk of infection.

How long will this last, will the honest endeavours of the enlightened be able to withstand the backlash from vested interests in the oil business?

We shall see.
For now, here are the positives.
Impressively, the UK government acted within days of announcing their plans for cycling, by issuing detailed instructions Local Authorities are to follow in order to put in place the Pop up cycle lanes quickly. 
So far (today, May 18) we know that Brighton was the first to install a Pop Up cycle lane, on a major dual carriageway. London quickly installed one on Park Lane.I think York has one in place.  Working on it, are Peterborough, Manchester, Liverpool, and other cities.
Meanwhile, Extinction Rebellion has spray-painted an unofficial cycle lane on a Cambridge Road.  
So, off to a good start. We next need to see a major road-rebuilding programme to accommodate cyclists in town and city.  

Then we’ll know whether all this is just more deceptive talk from Prime Minister Boris Johnson.  Whatever happened to his 40 new hospitals promised in his election manifesto?  Turns out there is only money enough for six NHS Trusts who each have an existing major hospital in urgent need of rebuilding.

Over to “pouring cold water on it” thinking.

We may well get the pop-up lanes, but the rest? It’s all too good to be true. The dozens of positive press stories following the announcement may convince the casual reader it’s happened. That  artist’s impressions of town centres criss-crossed with wide bike lanes are happening.

Those drivers who shout at cyclists for not using the adjacent cycle lane don’t know the cycle lane is all but one kilometre in length and is crap. 

As far I am aware, every pro cycling report calling for safer road conditions from Cycling UK (formerly CTC) presented to government has received fulsome praise.  But the buck has been passed to Local Authorities and those who had the political will  lacked the funding to do much.

This Creates the impression it’s been acted up or will be soon.  
We all know that the £2bn promised for major cycle works is about £4bn short. 
There is growing support from towns and cities with the political will do this work, if they are provided the funds to do so.
In the meantime towns hurry to install Pop up cycle lanes supported by the promise of £350m from government.  
As for the rest? 
Who knows?

Cycling takes off - or does it?

Well, well, quite suddenly, cycling as transport, plus walking -  ignored  by successive governments for 50 years, paid lip service at best, given buggar all in the last budget -  is now to get £2bn funding, effective immediately.

Cycling transport revolution at last? 

The reason?  The government is rightly very concerned that the economy will collapse because people are too spooked by the Coronavirus pandemic to use public transport to start getting back work. 
Whether it is safe to do so yet is an open question.  The latest advice on how lock down might or might not be eased from Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been criticised as confusing.

However,  they have turned to the humble cycle to save us from ruin.

The basic plan is to put in pop-up bike lanes, widen the pavements, make junctions safer and provide cycle and bus-only corridors. All this within the next few weeks.

Additionally, there will be vouchers issued to help people pay for bike repairs and to provide more “bike fixing facilities”, whatever they may be? Perhaps they will Bicycle Repair People stationed around town.

Better late than never.  But they haven't gone so far as to  say to drivers you should  cycle short distances instead of driving, to save the environment!

For it is common news that many of those who succumb to the virus have underlying  health issues, including respiratory illness, caused by pollution, with traffic one of the biggest contributors to fouling the air we breathe.

Between 7 and 9 million people die globally every year from illnesses caused by pollution and governments really couldn’t care less, counting this as a cost against production.

But since the advent of this plague, governments are waking up not so much to acknowledge that climate change threatens our extinction, but because the poorly regulated growth economics which has contributed to this and which underpins our very way of life -  or death if  you prefer -  has ground to a halt. 

So, on yer bike.

Crucially, though, £2bn on its own will not be enough. Cycling UK say between £5bn and £6bn will need to found over the next five years if the road infrastructure is to made safe for cycling.

It’s a huge undertaking if this is to be done properly.  All those roundabout to be ripped out and rebuilt, all the cycling-specific traffic signals which will need to be installed where cycle lanes cross main roads. All those contra-flow cycle lanes to be installed in those outdated one-way systems, the Bain not just of cyclists, but of drivers, too.

And what about those kerbs rounded off to allow traffic to turn into side roads without slowing, which puts pedestrians and cyclists lives at risk.
Can't see it happening.

I note in the news that the government is to it make it a strategic legal requirement to make changes to the highway – the pop up cycle lanes for instance. Are they talking about the trunk road network and/or the Local Authority road network.

This is important because historically, government, aka the Department for Transport, has only ever had the power to manage the few thousand miles of trunk roads and certainly not the 250,000 miles of the local roads network under Local Authority control.  
As one local councillor explained to me, the mechanics of government do not allow Westminster to tell Local Authorities what to do with roads under LA control.

Which is a pity, because it is these roads which carry the most traffic. I’m not sure what the present stats show, but as I understood it, 71 per cent of all journeys made are five miles or less, many of them suitable for cycling.

So, unless the government has got the LAs by the balls, and can now order them to make the changes necessary, this scheme risks going off at half-cock.  Because the LAs have never been legally bound by DfT decisions which have always been advisory for LA’s to ignore if they so wish and generally do over cycling matters.

With few exceptions, LAs have made a complete mess of any cycle infrastructure they could bother themselves to install, and their engineers have ignored government approved guidelines.

Watch this space.